Han Han


Han Han is a Chinese professional rally driver, best-selling author, singer, creator of Party, One and China's most popular blogger. He has published five novels to date, and is represented by the Hong Kong-based Peony Literary Agency. He is also involved in music production. In May 2010, Han Han was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. In September 2010, British magazine New Statesman listed Han Han at 48th place in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010". In June 2010, Han Han was interviewed by CNN as China's rebel writer who has become the unofficial voice for his generation.

Early life and increasing prominence

Han's first essay, Unhappy Days, was published when he was attending junior middle school. He was admitted to Shanghai's Song Jiang No. 2 High School based on his sporting achievements. During his first year of high school, Han won first prize in China's New Concept Writing Competition with his essay, Seeing Ourselves in a Cup, on the Chinese national character. Failing seven subjects at the year-end examination, Han was retained for a year in school. This incident was reported in the media and ignited a heated debate on China's "quality education" policy, whether holistic or specialised learning should be implemented in schools, and other educational issues. Following another seven subject failure in the senior middle school second year examinations, Han quit school.
After dropping out of school, Han worked on a series of essays - One Degree Below Freezing, Press Release 2003, And I Drift, and Miscellaneous Essays. His essays were accepted into various publications. Han's first novel, Triple Door, on life as a third-year junior school student in Shanghai, raised his prominence in China outside Shanghai. With over twenty million copies printed, this novel is China's bestselling literary work in the last 20 years. Other novels - Like a Speeding Youth, Riot in Chang'an City, A Fortress, Glory Days, His Kingdom were also published during this time.
Fueled by his love of racing, Han became a professional rally driver and wrote less frequently. However, he continued to blog on current affairs, with some articles attracting a large number of readers and sparking intense debates. Han's blog has registered well over 300 million hits, the largest online following of a personal blog in China.
In February 2005, a Hollywood movie was planned with the script to be based on Chinese writer Xie Hang's novel, Dysmenorrhoea, and filming to take place in a northern Chinese city. As Han's image suited him to play the male lead role, the Chinese partner company recommended him for the role to the American producers. When media outlets asked Han for his views on this matter, he replied, "I have yet to receive this invitation, but basically I would reject it." He explained, "It doesn't matter that this is a Hollywood movie, as my decision would depend on who's playing the female lead." On hearing that the script was about the forbidden love between a boy and his female teacher, Han laughed and rejected the role, saying, "This makes it even more difficult for me, I will not play such a role."
Han is also involved in music production. His debut album, R-18, was released in September 2006, with all lyrics self-composed.
In 2014, he became the product ambassador of Oneplus smartphone brand in China.

Controversies

The Han-Bai controversy

On 2 March 2006, Chinese literary critic and bookseller Bai Ye published a blog post entitled, Status and Future of the Post-80 Generation, a harsh criticism of the works of writers born in the 1980-1989 period. Han responded critically with his online article The "Literary Circle" Is Bullshit, Don't Act F**king Pretentious. This exchange escalated into the "Han-Bai controversy", with both sides arguing on issues such as the post-80 classification, whether the works of post-80s qualified as literature and whether post-80 writers should be considered real writers.
On 4 March 2006, Bai published an online article entitled My Declaration - a Reply to Han Han, stating that Han's articles in this exchange had crossed the boundaries of literary debate into the realm of humiliation and personal attack. Subsequently, writer Lu Tianming, his director son Lu Chuan, and musician Gao Xiaosong, entered the debate, which became the focus of the online community for a time. Han debated with the above personalities on his blog. The debate finally concluded with Bai, Lu Tianming, Lu Chuan, and Gao shutting down their personal blogs.

Han against Modern Poetry

Questioning the value of modern Chinese free verse, Han posted a blog article on 26 September 2006 entitled Why do modern poetry and poets still exist?. In this and other related articles, he parodied modern Chinese poets including the late Xu Zhimo and the late Hai Zi, igniting a controversy involving poets such as the Lower Body Poet Shen Haobo, Yang Li, Yi Sha, and Dong Li, and claimed that 'both modern poets and poems are no longer in need of existence, and the genre of modern poetry is meaningless'. This raised anger from Lower body poets. Shen Haobo wrote in his blog: 'The genuine novelists can never sell more than Han Han's rubbish work. This is the best writers and poets' own choice, and nothing to complain. However, Han Hans still hate these all.' When newspaper called Shen Haobo for an interview, Shen said he wouldn't talk about human's sense to a donkey so there is nothing to talk about.

Han-Zheng controversy

On 10 April 2007, Han criticised rock singer Zheng Jun's capriciousness in a blog post entitled Some Recent Arrangements, igniting a debate between the two. In 2006, Zheng condemned the Super Girl singing competition as being "unbearably disgusting", but participated in the judging for a similar competition Super Boy in 2007.

Ghostwriting allegation

On 15 January 2012, the blogger, technology entrepreneur, and former Baidu employee Mai Tian alleged in a blog post that the majority of Han's work was produced by a team of ghostwriters. Mai Tian claimed that Han Han's early work, including Triple Door, was in fact produced by Han's father, Han Renjun, a literature aficionado who was forced to leave university due to his condition of Hepatitis B. In addition, Mai Tian accused Han's publisher Lu Jinbo of leading a ghostwriting team that produced and published most of Han's work; Mai also questioned how Han was able to become a nationally acclaimed writer while maintaining fitness to participate in many high-level rally races. Han categorically denied the claims in a blog post dated 16 January 2012, and Mai Tian had since removed the post from his blog and formally apologized to Han on 18 January 2012.
On 16 January 2012, the Chinese scientific author and anti-fraud crusader Fang Zhouzi published a blog post, in which Fang concurred with Mai Tian and further raised questions on the plausibility of Han's works. Despite Mai Tian's retraction of his statements against Han, Fang continued to assert that Han's work was produced by ghostwriters. Han again denied Fang's claims and sued Fang for defamation on 29 January 2012. Besides Fang, Han also sued a man named Liu Mingze, who is said to have forwarded an article claiming that Han's work was produced by a team of ghostwriters. However, Han withdrew his prosecution a few days after the prosecution was accepted by the Putuo courthouse of Shanghai. Later, in an interview with a reporter, Han admitted that the person named Liu Mingze was actually a friend of his. Han sued this person so that the prosecution can be accepted by the Putuo courthouse since Liu Mingze was living in the zone of Putuo.
Later Mai Tian came back to support Fang's statements against Han.
On Nov 17, 2012, a blogger published his finding, searching through website archive, he discovered some of the articles allegedly written by Han were initially posted on Han's father's blog, these posts were removed later.

Setup of online bookstore and magazine

On 19 April 2009, Han launched his online bookstore, Han Han's Bookstore, on the Taobao online shopping marketplace. The bookstore site stated that it would sell only Han's original autographed books. As the number of sales transactions on Han Han's Bookstore was unusually large, the online system erroneously classified these as false transactions and attempts at credit fraud, leading Taobao to investigate the issue.
On 1 May 2009, Han posted an article on his blog entitled Request for articles, recruitment, article fees and article submission email address for a new magazine. The post mentioned that Han would be setting up a magazine, informing the email addresses for article submission, response to recruitment ads, and advertising offers, but without revealing the magazine's title to prevent illegal copying. The blog post also mentioned that the writer of the selected cover story, if the story had not been previously published, would get up to RMB 2,000 per 1,000 characters in article fees. This would be 10 to 40 times of the standard rate in China's publishing industry, and 2 to 4 times higher than what China's top magazine would pay China's top writer for an article. Writers of previously unpublished non-cover story articles in the magazine would be paid RMB 1,000 per 1,000 characters, 10 to 20 times higher than standard rates in the publishing industry. As for previously-published articles or selected extracts from articles, the rate would be RMB 500 per 1,000 characters, which would be about 15 times the standard rates. Contributors of photographs would be paid up to RMB 5,000 per photograph.
Han also invited article submissions for a "braindead" column, deliberately publishing articles that the magazine disagreed with or were not up to standards. The rate for such articles would be RMB 250 per 1,000 characters. 250 is a Chinese slang with the same meaning of "You idiot". Han gave the rationale for including this column:
Within five days of putting up the blog post, Han received over 10,000 article submissions from across China, and also a few thousand résumés. There were several articles of the types which Han had expressly forbidden from submission, such as cut and paste jobs, pornographic literature and dissertations. Han expressed his exasperation with these and declared that such articles would not be published.
Han's setup of his magazine received widespread attention, with editors proclaiming that the higher fees enabled the writing profession to regain a measure of financial independence and dignity. One journalist even commented that Han had completed his transformation from a rebellious youth into a full-fledged intellectual.
Due to certain publishing and circulation restrictions in China, Han's magazine, which was originally planned for publication in August 2009, remained unpublished for some time.
One of the delays was reportedly because of an article that detailed the blacklisting of actors.
On July 6, 2010, his magazine Party was finally published. According to the publisher, the magazine became the most popular book on Amazon.cn less than 10 hours after pre-selling.
However, it only lasted one issue. In December, 2010, Global Times, a state-linked newspaper, reported "Han Han's magazine dies". The paper reported: "Han went through more than 10 publishers to try and save that content and may have planned to include in the second issue."
On June 11, 2012, Han Han published his own digital magazine One（一个） with his old editorial board of the Party（独唱团） magazine. He first published iOS app, and then was able to launch the Android version "One" app on November 28, 2012. As stated in his foreword of the One magazine, he wishes his readers to take off a few minutes every day to read and think. The basic frame of this magazine is to offer one picture, one article, and one Q&A column everyday.
Faced with critics saying he was not directly talking about democracy and the government this time, he said he felt "tired" of the repetitive political discussion on the web, so he decided to focus on editing a good magazine this time.

Rally racing career

After Han turned professional as a rally driver, there were rumours that he had encountered financial difficulties. Han himself admitted that writers and race car drivers in China earned less compared to those in other professions. Furthermore, his only income source was from book royalties as he was not involved in other revenue generating activities. However, he continued to race as it gave him a sense of achievement. Winning prizes also enabled him to prove to himself that he was a well-rounded learner. As Han stated in a media interview in 2007:
The following highlights some of Han's achievements in his racing career:
After his experiences at the WRC Rally Australia in 2009, he wrote a blog post entitled Report on supervision and guidance work in preparation for the WRC in Australia, using irony to express dissatisfaction with China's standards of race management, economic conditions, political consciousness of the population, etc. in comparison with Australia.

Music

R-18 is Han Han's first album. It was released on September 26, 2006 by ShangHai ToWing Culture Development Co., Ltd.

Track listing

Filmography